All in Economy
Since 2001, visitors from around the globe have been treated to the "twin-wonders" of Nelson in the form of the World of WearableArt and Classic Cars Museum. Displaying one of Australasia's largest private collections of vintage cars, visitors are also treated to over 70 World of WearableArt garments.
Did you know that the Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce’ provides a programme that supports and connects Canterbury employers’ with newcomers skills. Since this Immigration New Zealand funded programme began in 2003 to the end of June 2015, on average annually over 860 Canterbury employers have been connected with potential skilled migrant job seekers. A total of 2200 skilled migrant job seekers have received ‘one on one’ job search support and over 800 have been successfully placed into jobs specific to their skills sets.
Aiming to help migrants and first-time entrepreneurs fulfil their dream of running successful businesses, Massey University’s start up incubator – ecentre, and Aspire2 Group’s Ntec Tertiary Group, have come together to launch a part-time business start-up programme to be hosted at the New Enterprise Centre in Central Auckland.
The government’s new first-stop-shop product recall website has been embraced by consumers, claimed Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Paul Goldsmith recently. The site www.recalls.govt.nz went live in March this year. Since then 125 products have been recalled, and over 28,000 people have used the site to search, subscribe and keep safe by knowing which products may pose a safety risk, the Minister added.
The Kiwi workplace is unique. From the distinctive language and communication style through to the relaxed informality with the boss, the workplace environment in New Zealand can be very different from what many new migrants have experienced before.
Sir Paul Callaghan, a world renowned scientist and 2011 New Zealander of the Year, maintained that New Zealand should aim for an economy based on science, technology and innovation. He talked of New Zealand as a place ‘where talent wants to live’. While New Zealand has plenty of jobs in the service industry, especially in hospitality, these are low wage jobs and will not lift our economy. Sir Paul died in 2012 but the authors of this book echo his views and suggest the future economy of New Zealand would benefit from encouraging the right kind of immigrants.
The history of Love Food Hate Waste Campaign began in 2007 in the UK, and it is being run currently in Victoria, New South Wales and Vancouver as well. In New Zealand, the three-year-long Campaign began in June 1, 2016, with 59 councils and community groups joining hands with WasteMINZ, which is a membership-based organisation with over 1,000 members from waste, resource recovery and contaminated land sectors in the country.
A group of over 50 taxi drivers, belonging to all major taxi companies in the city - including Blue Star and Gold Band, organised a two-hour protest in Christchurch on September 5, against what they called government's "inadequate action" on dealing with Uber. It was the part of nationwide action taken by taxi drivers against the billion-dollar multi-national, with similar protests taking place in Auckland and Wellington – just outside the Parliament.
Canterbury was put on the national map this weekend with the successful organisation of the first-ever Indian Women Expo in Christchurch. The six-hour long event, which had 47 stalls divided into nine zones, saw almost 1,000 people attending with several ministers and MPs including Amy Adams, Nicky Wagner, Parmjeet Parmar, and Ruth Dyson.
A new study has revealed that “changes in immigration policy, which can impact only on visa-controlled immigration, are unlikely to have much impact on the housing market”.
In similar vein to Hellers from Waimakariri [story on page 6], Christchurch-based AuCom Electronics, specialists in fixed speed motor control, which has 110 employees on its role, employs migrants coming from 26 different nationalities.
The population of Waimakariri is changing, with the range of ethnicities and numbers growing as employers have to go further afield to recruit workers. An example is Hellers Ltd in Kaiapoi, which employs 450 people in their state-of-the-art meat processing plant and over 50 are migrant workers.
The two authors interviewed 14 migrant taxi drivers in Christchurch and Wellington to find out more about their lives. In fact, the authors interviewed many more but some families did not want their story published, in part because taxi driving is not seen as a suitable career in some countries.
Peter Townsend is the Chief Executive of the Canterbury Employers' Chamber of Commerce (CECC), a position he has held since 1996. In addition, he holds several corporate directorships and is the Honorary Consul for Chile for the South Island. In recognition of his services to businesses and communities, he received the Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) in the 2014 New Year’s Honours. He is actively engaged in earthquake recovery issues and as such he was appointed to the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Advisory Board on Transition in January 2015. He is also on the Board of Pegasus Health and Ōtākaro Limited - a new Crown company established to deliver key anchor projects and precincts in Christchurch.
Over 400 Canterburians, many of them migrants, responded to NZ Police's call for a more diverse force on July 16 in Christchurch
Geoff Bascand, Deputy Governor and Head of Operations at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, in a speech delivered to Otago University in Dunedin few months back, explained in detail “how migration affects the economy”. He made some pertinent points, which persuaded this newspaper to report on what he explained. Interested readers may scan the QR code below to read his full speech.
Absolute IT – a North Island based recruitment firm, which claims to “captures over 39,000 real-time contract and permanent employees’ remuneration as entered into itsalaries.co.nz”, has released it's latest Remuneration Report.
Realising the importance of international students in New Zealand's education sector, the National Government, has put in place two very important measures since July 1, this year. First is the Education (Pastoral Care of International Students) Code Of Practice 2016 replacing the existing Code of Practice for the Pastoral Care of International Students, for which the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) is the Code Administrator.
The minister was speaking at a protest organised and attended by around 150 taxi drivers in the City against the company, Uber
Immigration New Zealand in collaboration with the Language in the Workplace Team, School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, has developed a web tool to help workplace communication challenges and improve communication between NZ employers, managers and their new migrant employees from other cultures.
